Another Ending
by CullenFreak88
Summary: Ever wanted to know how Fanche and Saefas ended up during Lady Knight? this is a oneshot about what happens to them during the last battle when Kel is fighting Blayce and after.


**I normally write stories for Twilight, but I just read the Song of the Lioness and the Protector of the Small books, and I just had to write one about Tortall. This is a oneshot about Fanche's and Saefas's ending, and if you remember from the book he doesn't die. So I tried to stay as true to the story as possible, but it would have been a lot more fun if he'd died. (I like Saefas, but don't you agree that deaths are much more fun to write??)**

Saefas lay there on the cold flagstones, accepting death as the likeliest possibility as he felt his own blood pooling around himself. _It was your idea, _he said grimly to himself. _It was your decision to follow Fanche to rescue the children from this god's cursed magician's castle._

He winced as the point on the dagger that was embedded into his shoulder shifted slightly, and groaned. He hadn't seen it. He had been searching through the masses of warring figures for the Lady Knight and had been hit by one of the Scanran soldiers, from just inches away. No one had seen him go down, they were so intent on the enemy.

The battle raged around him, yet no one came to help him. _Or to finish me, _Saefas added dourly. As he lay there, gasping for breath, a lone dog came scampering through the door, yelping as he narrowly dodged an arrow. He caught sight of Saefas and padded over, head cocked to one side as he approached the injured man. Saefas watched warily. He knew that this was one of the animals possessed with extra knowledge provided by that powerful witch, Daine.

The dog paused inches from Saefas's face, and licked it hesitantly. Saefas, in too much pain to really care, gasped out, "Find Fanche," half believing that the animal wouldn't understand. But the animal yipped in assent and plodded off. Saefas shut his eyes, and tried to save his strength if Fanche really would come.

She was the one, he was certain; he wanted to spend the rest of his life with if the gods were gracious. This future seemed very unlikely now. She had returned his interest in her own way, with snappy remarks and stinging insults. But underneath this façade, he could see the warmth in her eyes as she did.

She was a widow, but far from mournful and shy. No, his Fanche was strong and determined, spitting before any kind of danger or threat that came her way. She defied anyone and everyone, and he loved her spirit. Now, he hoped, his love was enough for her to come to him.

His mind drifted in the next few minutes, not once focusing on his pain. He blinked, and the shape of the Black God he had imagined disappeared. In his place hurried Fanche, eyes bright with war fever and her mouth turned down in a grimace. Saefas grinned. This was no mirage. She knelt down beside him.

"Saefas, you idiot!" Fanche growled. "Right when you needed you most, you go and get yourself stabbed like a blind man!"

Her harsh words were diminished by the tears that were spilling down her cheeks, making tracks down her bloodstained face. He ignored her and raised his hand to his chest, clasping her calloused hand.

"Fanche," he whispered. "You know how badly I wish things could have turned out differently."

"Shut up," she cried, turning her face away and shutting her eyes, blinking out more tears.

"Nothing is going to happen to you. I'm going to-"

she stopped, seeing Saefas's eyes widen in horror as he gazed at something over her shoulder. She wheeled around to face a Scanran soldier, wielding a long, evil-looking dagger that had just been about to plunge into her back.

She grappled for her own dagger, in too much of a hurry to grab the sword that lay beside Saefas. He leered at her, and then raised the weapon, intending to end her with a powerful downward thrust. She couldn't grab her dagger fast enough, and she saw with the mad glint in his eye that this was the end. She only hoped that Saefas would live through the night without her.

However, she didn't intend to go down without a fight. Fanche never accepted the odds. She would fight to the very end. The man's smirk twisted into a grimace as Fanche heard a ripping noise and a growl, and looked down slightly to see the Lady Knight's faithful dog attached to the soldier's arm. Jump's usually perky tail wasn't waving and his usually cocked ears were flat against his head in a gesture of aggression.

Fanche didn't waste time. Bending down quickly, she grabbed the sword and brought it upward as she stood, gutting the man. She could feel the weapon emerge from the body on the other side, and grimaced in disgust as his weight fell against her slim body. She threw him off and he fell against the stone floor, dead.

She turned around, and knelt by Saefas again. He was grinning through the pain, looking up at the small, but sturdy woman who had just gutted a man before his very eyes. She scowled, but it didn't reach her eyes. His eyes never left hers, but she felt a change in his breathing. Shallower, shorter.

"You need help!" Fanche said grimly, and she looked around for a sign of that healer, Sir Nealan. Normally she didn't trust these mages, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She became more panicked, as there seemed to be no sign of the knight. Hastily, she ripped a strip of her shirt off the bottom.

"I'm going to take the dagger out, okay?" she asked softly. Saefas closed his eyes and nodded, completely trusting her. Carefully, she curled her fingers around the hilt and tried to decide which would be better – easing it out or yanking it out quickly? There wasn't much time to try and perform a surgery in the middle of a battle, she thought.

Leaning in more, she forced herself to watch the wound as she coaxed it out, trying to pull it out straight as to not cut anything vital. Saefas gasped in pain, and sweat rolled off of him like ocean waves. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he tried not to show Fanche how much pain he was in. She wasn't fooled, and she endured every minute of it in agony.

_It's necessary if you want him to live, _she reminded herself, and kept going. Finally the point left his skin. She sighed in relief and threw the dagger away in disgust. Saefas did all he could to keep from fainting. She cradled his head in her lap, as she had seen so many widows-to-be do in Haven during the battle there. The difference was that he was still alive, and she would keep it that way, as long as there was breath in her body.

"Fanche," Saefas whispered, opening his eyes a fraction to gaze up at the strong, determined face above his, "If we get out of this, will you…will you marry me?" Fanche closed her eyes.

_I don't even need to think about it,_ she told herself. She opened her eyes. "Yes," she said steadily. "The first thing we will do after you recover is be married." Saefas shut his eyes, a content smile on his lips. Now he relaxed, and the tension left his shoulders.

They sat together for a half hour. Anyone who approached them was scared off by Jump, who uncharacteristically snarled at anyone who even looked like they were thinking about coming over there. Suddenly the room quieted down because someone was shouting something in Scanran from a doorway.

From the little she knew, Fanche translated, "Stenmun's dead! Stenmun's dead!" The silence was quickly broken as Scanran soldiers dropped their weapons and started fleeing madly towards the door. Cheers erupted from Lady Kel's force, and some chased after the retreating Scanrans.

Fanche collapsed against Saefas in relief. She scowled in chagrin as she tried to wipe away the tears that spilled down her face. _You're weeping like a noble girl, _she scolded herself. But the tears wouldn't stop. She pressed her head against Saefas's chest gently and hid her face from the soldiers.

Someone's hand brushed her shoulder, and she looked up into the concerned eyes of a convict soldier. Wordlessly, she straightened up and looked up for anything she could use as a stretcher. Another man came over with a black eye but a grin on his face, and she and the two convict soldiers started briskly lifting Saefas onto the coarse, white fabric.

He moaned slightly, and she waited a moment to lift her end of the stretcher. When he lied still again, she worked together with the men to carry Saefas over to where the wounded were being tended. Fanche lost all gentleness the moment the stretcher touched the ground.

She marched over to a man with strips of cloth torn from someone's tunic, and demanded to use one of them. The man handed her one of the cloths, damp from someone's water flask without argument, cringing slightly under Fanche's fierce glare. She bustled back, maneuvering around the stretchers that littered the chamber to Saefas's.

Leaning over him, she gently pressed one to his head. "Where's that god's-cursed healer when you need him?" she snapped to one of the men placing a wounded man down near her. Before he could answer her, she noticed all heads turning towards the door that the man bearing news about Blayce's dog emerged from.

The healer and another man were carrying another stretcher down. On this one lay the Lady Knight. Everyone held their breath as the men approached the place where the dead were being piled, and released it as they passed it to set her down by the injured.

"It's about time," Fanche muttered, and stood up. She marched over to where the Sir Nealan was working on Lady Kel and tapped him on the shoulder. "Come see to Saefas right now," she snapped. "How bad is he?" he muttered absently as green fire flowed over the Lady Knight's shoulder. "He took a dagger to the shoulder."

The healer opened his mouth, and she could see he was intending to argue. "I don't care what you're doing, 'Sir', but you'd better drop it and come see to Saefas!" Neal appraised her with a wry smile and the flow of magic stopped. "Lead the way," he said, giving up.

"That's more like it." She led him over to where Saefas was sprawled out over the ground. He kneeled down beside her and examined him. "Not as much damage as there could have been, but I'm sure he's seen better days." Murmuring softly, another stream of green magic flowed from his fingertips and into the wounded man's shoulder.

In a couple of seconds, the wound looked weeks old and almost healed. Neal sat back and grinned with satisfaction. "Not bad, eh?" he said, appraising his work. "Hmph," grumbled Fanche, as she conducted her own examination of Saefas's newly healed wound. Neal laughed and stood up, working his way back to Kel, stopping every few men to heal something vital.

Just healed, Saefas fell into an even deeper slumber and Fanche knew it was safe to go help the others.

Five hours later, she was standing on the edge of the bridge, looking into the water. She was exhausted from the morning's work, and Saefas was still deep in slumber. She fingered the black woven ring on her finger that symbolized her being a widow absentmindedly.

She was definitely ready to be married again. She was sure she would be happy with Saefas. He was a carefree man, who put up with her nature and even loved her for it. It'd been a while since anyone had loved her like that. She had not been with her past husband when he had died. She had been alone when she received the news.

Fanche was not so sure she'd prefer that to being with her husband in his last moments. She wanted to love a man again, and it had to be someone like Saefas. She sighed, and knew it was time to go back inside. The men were going to move everyone out, so everyone could make ready to leave.

_I'm not glad to go, _she thought ruefully. _It was kind of… fun, having an adventure again._ Not usually one to believe in that sort of thing, she picked a rock off the ground and threw it into the water with a wish for luck on her tongue.

She was there when Saefas woke again. The first thing she did was hug him, then hit him for being pig-headed enough to get himself stabbed. He laughed, though she didn't think it was funny. But she was very relieved to see him up and about again. Lady Kel was awake too, and she was getting ready to leave.

She had single-handedly killed Blayce, the man who was killing children by the handfuls to provide souls for his awful killing machines. Bleary-eyed and cross from sleep, she didn't look all that formidable at the moment. Finally all was packed up and everyone was ready to leave.

On the way home, Fanche and Saefas rode slowly at the back. "I can't believe I was out-fought by a woman," Saefas teased. Fanche fixed him with her fiercest look and scowled. "It will ruin my reputation when we're married!" "What reputation?" she snapped back. Saefas didn't even flinch.

"I hope when we're married, you won't get the idea into you're head that we'll settle down, become a family. What fun would that be?" he grinned. "We'll tour the countryside, looking for action, like Lady Kel, 'cept without the shield."

"Oh, I can see it now," said Fanche dryly. "We'll be the most fearsome couple in all of Tortall!" Saefas laughed and said, "You've got that title all to yourself, lady," and galloped ahead. Fanche tried to scowl, but it was all she could do to keep the smile off her face. She coaxed her gelding into a gallop and rode after Saefas.

**I'll probably write another one later about someone else, but it depends on how this story is received. So review if you like it, and even if you don't!**


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